


Sometimes Adults Just Stare and Really, Kids, You Don't Want To Know

by InfiniteInMystery



Series: Gintoki's Angsty Mental Moments [4]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst and Humor, It's all subtle, Just Weird Moments, Kagura and Sadaharu Don't Ask, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25733674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteInMystery/pseuds/InfiniteInMystery
Summary: During a lazy day of watching TV, Gintoki goes to make tea.Kagura has to go see why he didn't come back.
Series: Gintoki's Angsty Mental Moments [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767850
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Sometimes Adults Just Stare and Really, Kids, You Don't Want To Know

Kagura's aware that Gintoki has some… _issues_ , to say the least, and living under the same roof as the man means Kagura has seen some of his more… _questionable_ moments. Sometimes, she wonders if she should tell someone about the things that happened – the little things he does, the weird things – but she figures it would cause both of them more hassle than they needed. The list of 'Weird Things Gin-chan Does' was long, but this one was the one that occurred more frequently than the rest. Perhaps it was… a sign.

It was just after lunch. The job they did that morning had been a _good bang for their buck_ , or so Gintoki had said. They had been called in to weed an old ladies garden, and after ripping everything out of the soil, they had been shooed off the property and paid extra to stay away. Nothing too weird. Shinpachi had gone home with real food for his sister to eat, and Gintoki and Kagura had retreated to idle about the rest of the day.

But after lazing around the house, watching Ladies Four-point-Five, a spin-off of the original, Kagura noticed that Gintoki had left a few minutes ago to go get _something –_ she hadn't been listening to him grumble – but he had never come back.

 _He's probably eating sweets out of the fridge again like an overgrown toddler._ Sitting up with pickled seaweed hanging from her mouth, Kagura glanced around the Odd Jobs living room, looking for any sign of white hair or whining complaints. He hadn't retreated to his bedroom, hadn't plopped down at his desk to do whatever it was that he liked to do there. He hadn't left, had he? His wooden sword was still leaning against the couch, so he was still under their roof. Did he fall into the toilet?

 _He_ _'_ _s probably in the kitchen._ With a finger to her lips, Kagura turned to Sadaharu, silently instructing the massive Inugami to stay put so she couldn’t get caught sneaking. Sadaharu huffed and laid his head down to continue his nap. Kagura got off the couch on light feet, she had been practicing, and crept towards the kitchen entrance. Gintoki might have always complained that she was too loud, always yelling or stomping around like an elephant, but sometimes Kagura liked to sneak up on him and see how close she could get before he noticed her. One of these days, she might even be able to surprise him.

Would he praise her? He'd treat her for sure.

She crept silently to the entrance of the kitchen, peeking around the corner with only an eye at first, before poking her whole head out into the open to stare. Her eyebrows scrunched closer together, eyes widening as she tried to understand what she was seeing.

Gintoki was standing in the middle of the kitchen, his back to her. His arms were crossed over his chest, leaning more on one leg than the other. The cupboards were open, plates and bowls and little teacups to be seen neatly stacked on the shelves – Shinpachi's doing, of course – and nothing appeared to be missing our out of place from what Kagura could see. But Gintoki stood there silently. Staring. He didn't move. Didn't shift. Didn't even make a sound. And it wasn't until Kagura's back started to protest the awkward sneaky angle that she realized she had been standing there for at least a couple minutes, watching Gintoki watch the plates.

He didn't move.

 _Was he replaced with a statue?_ Kagura straightened, her little heart speeding up as she quietly stepped into the kitchen, gently placing the soles of her bare feet onto the kitchen floor as she tip-toed up behind him. One step at a time, she crept closer, and closer, holding her breath when she crept up nearer than she had ever managed undetected before.

He didn't have his sword on him because he never slung it through his belt at home, but Kagura still made sure to flank him on the left, just in case she _did_ manage to scare him and he _did_ try to attack her. She crept two steps to his left, keeping distance between them, lest he feel the air subtly shift or something stupidly impossible like that, before leaning around to try and get a glimpse of his face. Her little heart picked up speed as she peered up. _What if it's just a dummy? What if he saw a snake in the cupboard and it turned him into a_ _stone_ _statue?_

Gintoki wasn't a statue, and he wasn't made of stone. He was just staring. There was a gentle crease between his brows in contemplation, but his unblinking dead fish eyes were half-lidded and dull, dull, dull. He was even frowning so hard there were lines in his cheeks.

“Gin-”

Gintoki flinched with a quiet inhale, eyes snapping to Kagura the second she had inhaled to speak. He jumped almost two feet away from her, his right hand shooting for his left hip, eyes wide and his mouth opening the same moment he realized what had happened. It all happened so fast. One millisecond he was spooked and ready to murder, the next he was whining loudly like an overgrown playground bully.

“Oi! Don't sneak up on me like that you little brat! I'm old you know, you could have given old Gin-chan a heart attack!” Gintoki yelled as he straightened. He shook out his arms before turning back to the cupboard, storming up to them like they had done something wrong to him, and slamming the doors closed. “What if I had been making tea?”

“But you weren't making tea!” Kagura yelled back, matching him in volume as she strutted to the fridge. She ripped the door open just as hard as Gintoki had slammed the cupboards. “You were just staring! You know, it's bad for old men like you to space out like that. You should go get checked for Alzheimer’s!”

“What do you know about Alzheimer's!” Gintoki yelled. He had his hands on his hips, eyes glued to the closed cupboards. He must have remembered what he had originally gone into the kitchen for, because he flung the cupboards back open, grabbing two little green tea mugs. He set them on the counter before slamming the door shut again, fiddling with the kettle he'd gotten ready earlier. His face was tense in focus. Was he embarrassed? Or lost?

How long he'd been staring at the cups, Kagura wasn't sure. She rooted dramatically through their mostly empty fridge before pulling out a mini carton of Gintoki's strawberry milk. She slammed the fridge door shut with just as much force as he had slammed the cupboards.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing with that? Why are you drinking Gin-chan's milk? You don't even like strawberry milk! And I'm making you tea!” Gintoki said, his voice straining. “I'm making _tea!”_

“I don't need tea.” Kagura said. “And you don't need strawberry milk. It causes brain rot.”

“It does not!”

Kagura left the kitchen with the carton, plopping down on the couch. She scratched Sadaharu behind the ear for being a Good Boy and not blowing her cover before she popped open the carton of milk and took a sip.

It was disgusting.

Gintoki came back out from the kitchen a few moments later, setting down his mug of tea. He had a pack of Kagura's pickled seaweed in his hands and he threw it at her face before he sat down.

“Abuse! Abuse!” Kagura yelled, catching the seaweed after it slapped into her forehead and started to fall. “Why'd you throw it at me?”

Gintoki laid down on the couch, eyes on the television. He didn't answer her, didn't drink his tea, and his eyes never gained their shine back until the next morning.


End file.
